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Muslim infant and maternal mortality rate lower in India

NEW DELHI: Social and economic indicators place Indian Muslims below lower caste Hindus known as Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Schedule Tribes (STs), but the maternal mortality rate (MMR) and infant mortality rate (IMR) is lowest among them (Indian Muslims), revealed an official report titled “Maternal Mortality in India: 1997-2003 – Trends, Causes and Risk Factors”, released on Saturday.

Even though an estimated 78,000 women died while giving birth to about 26 million children in India during 2004, statistics show that the maternal mortality had dropped by 24 percent between 1997-98 and 2001-2003.

Religious indicators show that MMR is estimated highest among women of STs (652) and SCs (584) compared to other Hindu castes. Hindus in general have been found having higher MMR (573) and Muslims just (384).

Anthropologist PN Mari Bhat said the unusual low MMR among Muslims was puzzling. He, however, believed that it could be because Muslims generally lived in large villages and in urban centres where they had better access to emergency obstetrics care.

According to an official survey, Muslims also fared better than Hindus in terms of IMR. The IMR for Hindus stood at 77 per thousand, much higher than Muslims (59 per 1,000). Christians have the lowest at 49 per 1,000.

About 32 per thousand children born in Hindu families have a probability of dying between 1 and 5 years of age. In Muslims this figure is 25 per thousand and for Christians 19 per thousand. In the case of under-five mortality rate, the level is much higher for Hindus, as about 107 per thousand live births died before completing five years of age. The level is much lower for Muslims (83) and even lower for Christians (68). The national average is 101 per thousand live births. Outgoing health secretary PK Hota, who retired on Wednesday, said social practices among Muslims resulted in a lower rate of abortion and MMR in the community. iftikhar gilani

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